Publications

February 2008
Case

EFI, Inc. (A)

By: David B. Godes and Lauren Barley

EFI has a unique sales compensation challenge. They cannot allocate sales credit for their core product to individual salespeople. So, they've historically paid the sales force as a team. This has worked out fine, since they've been a near-monopoly seller of a single... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Compensation and Benefits; Performance Evaluation; Groups and Teams; Salesforce Management; Motivation and Incentives

28 Aug 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, August 28, 2018

maintaining a high level of exploration. Solutions improved most on rounds with social influence after a period of separation. We also show that storing subjects’ best solutions so that they could be reloaded and possibly modified in subsequent rounds—a ubiquitous... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

August 2018 (Revised July 2020)
Case

Revenue Recognition at HBP

By: Paul Healy and Siko Sikochi

In early 2014, Paul Bills, CFO of Harvard Business Publishing (HBP), sat down with David Wan, the company’s CEO, to discuss budget preparations for the coming year. Bills noted that the performance of Corporate Learning, one of HBP’s three business units, would be... View Details

Keywords: Accrual Accounting; Budgets and Budgeting; Revenue Recognition; Financial Reporting; Publishing Industry; Education Industry; United States

14 Sep 2007
Research & Ideas

How to Profit from Scarcity

company. It wasn't just direct sales of these two products that benefited from the scarcity illusion, however: The heavy crowds drove sales of related products in Apple stores and bookstores during a... View Details

Keywords: by John Quelch; Consumer Products; Consumer Products

December 1999
Case

Sun Microsystems, Inc. (A1): "Dot-comming" the World: Philip Nenon on a Billion Dollar Bet

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter and Jane Roessner

A group at Sun Microsystems, Inc. proposed that a recent acquisition that made fault-tolerant computers for telecommunications was a major opportunity for Sun. If the board provided funding to expand the acquisition's portfolio of products and make them part of the... View Details

Keywords: Acquisition; Corporate Entrepreneurship; Governing and Advisory Boards; Motivation and Incentives; Expansion; Technology Industry

Article

Are All Certified EHRs Created Equal? Assessing the Relationship between EHR Vendor and Hospital Meaningful Use Performance

By: A Jay Holmgren, Julia Adler-Milstein and Jeffrey McCullough

Objective
The federal electronic health record (EHR) certification process was intended to ensure a baseline level of system quality and the ability to support meaningful use criteria. We sought to assess whether there was variation across EHR vendors in the... View Details

Keywords: Hospitals; Electronic Health Records; Digital Health; Health Care and Treatment; Information Technology; Service Delivery; Performance Evaluation

Find at Harvard

04 Mar 2013
Working Paper Summaries

The Dirty Laundry of Employee Award Programs: Evidence from the Field

Keywords: by Timothy Gubler, Ian Larkin & Lamar Pierce; Service

December 2018 (Revised May 2019)
Case

Darling Ingredients International

By: David E. Bell and Natalie Kindred

Led by CEO Randall Stuewe, Texas-based Darling Ingredients International was a rendering firm with $3.7 billion in 2017 revenues. Since 2003, Darling had transformed from U.S. focused into a global player in the processing of biological waste from meat and foodservice... View Details

2013
Working Paper

The Dirty Laundry of Employee Award Programs: Evidence from the Field

By: Timothy Gubler, Ian I. Larkin and Lamar Pierce

Many scholars and practitioners have recently argued that corporate awards are a "free" way to motivate employees. We use field data from an attendance award program implemented at one of five industrial laundry plants to show that awards can carry significant... View Details

Keywords: Motivation and Incentives; Service Delivery; Performance Productivity; Failure; Service Industry

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September 2017 (Revised April 2022)
Case

Tempur Sealy International (A)

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Lauren G. Pickle

This case explores the long-term relationship between Tempur Sealy (TPX, a mattress manufacturer) and Mattress Firm (MFRM, a bedding retailer and TPX's largest customer). For almost 20 years, the firms enjoyed a mutually beneficial and commercially prosperous... View Details

April 2024 (Revised December 2024)
Case

Anthropic: Building Safe AI

By: Shikhar Ghosh and Shweta Bagai

In late 2024, Anthropic, a leading AI safety and research company, achieved a significant breakthrough with computer use capabilities that allowed AI to interact with computers like humans. Co-founded by former OpenAI employees and known for its generative AI... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Corporate Accountability; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Business Growth and Maturation; Corporate Strategy; Technology Industry; United States

April 2002 (Revised February 2003)
Module Note

Teaching Project Finance: An Overview of the Large-Scale Investment Course

By: Benjamin C. Esty

Large-Scale Investment is a case-based course about project finance for second-year MBA students. Project finance involves the creation of a legally independent project company financed with nonrecourse debt for the purpose of investing in a single-purpose industrial... View Details

Keywords: Projects; Financing and Loans

October 2000 (Revised March 2001)
Case

Firestone/Ford Tire Controversy, The (A)

By: V.G. Narayanan and Roger Orosman Nieves

Examines the high-profile Firestone/Ford product recall/investigation that took place in the summer of 2000. Focuses on the management of supplier relationships and incentives. View Details

Keywords: Knowledge Sharing; Supply Chain Management; Motivation and Incentives; Crisis Management; Corporate Accountability; Product; Service Operations; Auto Industry

Benson P. Shapiro is a well-known authority on marketing strategy and sales management with particular interests in pricing, product line planning, and marketing organization. He is also the Malcolm P. McNair Professor of Marketing Emeritus at the Harvard Business... View Details

September 2003 (Revised March 2004)
Compilation

PEARL Project, The: Work Patterns at Ditto (A)

By: Leslie A. Perlow

Describes life on a product development team, the behaviors that are rewarded, and the difficult tradeoffs members often have to make as a result. This is a rewritten version of an earlier case. View Details

Keywords: Product Development; Time Management; Groups and Teams; Work-Life Balance; Motivation and Incentives; Information Technology Industry